Third Soundboard Progress

Saturday, May 23, 2009.

Even though our visitors have arrived I have been able to get a fair amount done on my newest soundboard - in fact its pretty much done and ready to glue onto the new rim - carved, shaped, f-holes cut, and tone bars installed and shaped. Having carved it twice before, I found carving to go a whole lot faster now that I have a better idea what I am doing. Here is what it looks like.



You will probably notice that there is a place at the base of the soundboard that is light colored. This is a patch of maple veneer that I had to install where I got the soundboard too thin while carving. While I never broke all the way through, the spruce got paper thin and unless I was going to abandon this soundboard, too, I needed to find a way to repair it. Fortunately I had a sheet of thin maple veneer left over from where I had used some earlier on the peghead and, using hide glue, I used it to reinforce the thin spot from the inside.


Judging by the light ring after gluing, I think it should work out OK provided that the veneer doesn’t end up dampening the sound too much (if any).

I also was able to get my rim completed (the glue on the kerf lining is setting up as we speak).



And, finally, I managed to carve the scroll. I really like this.

Some Backwards Steps

Friday, April 17, 2009.

Earlier this week, I posted some pictures of my work out on the Mandolin Café website and luckily (or unluckily I suppose depending on how you look at it) one of the REAL luthiers who frequents the site pointed out that one of my tone bars was glued in the wrong location. Sure enough, when I went back and checked it against the plans, I had indeed missed the mark. A little embarrassing to not catch something so big myself, but I guess that’s what learning is all about.

So yesterday, I decided to try to “unglue” the bar by soaking it with water hoping to soften the glue enough to get it off. After letting it soak overnight, not only was I NOT able to get the bar off, but I DID manage to unglue the soundboard from the side wood. Oh yeah, I also managed to warp the soundboard. And I suspect I might have ruined the glue joint between the kerf lining and the side wood, too. Way to go, Steve!

Of coarse one of the other REAL luthiers suggested that I simply carve away the mis-located bar and replace it with a new one. I thought about doing it this way (and probably should have taken his advice) but not having extra wood from which to make a new bar, I opted to try my removal process instead. Sigh.



So, all this damage done, I have decided to start over on the soundboard-side wood bending-kerf lining. I can’t say that this is a really bad thing, though, since I must confess that I was a little disappointed in the overall results I had achieved on this first assembly – my side wood bending was a little “off” from the shape of the mold, my mahogany blocks were not quite the right shape to match the thickness of the side wood, and I think I can do a much better job of shaping and finishing the soundboard before installing the tone bars. In all, I think I will probably be a lot happier with my finished instrument this way. So, I placed another order today with my friends at Steward-MacDonald for new top and side wood and, once that arrives, I can begin again.

This evening, I got home from work and took another last look at the tone bar, having decided to go ahead and continue to let it soak all day - after all what more damage could I do? When I took the soak rag off, much to my surprise, the tone bar popped right off. No additional damage to the soundboard.

I’m still gonna go ahead and build the second soundboard though. After considering my ongoing disappointment with the first one, I think I will be a lot happier if I do.


In the mean time, I still have plenty to do with finishing the back and getting the neck ready to attach. Here is how the scroll on the back is coming.


In the long run, my hope is to “salvage” the old soundboard-side assembly enough to use for a “mandolin-build-in-process” display some day. I have often thought that this kind of display would be kind of cool to have set up at a festival or such. Maybe this can be my first piece for such a display.

Carving the Back

Sunday, April 12, 2009.

What little time I had this week was completely focused on carving the outside of the back. As with the soundboard, I did all of this by hand using my carving tools and scraper. Unlike the soundboard though, for the back I went ahead and clamped the part to the bench while I carved. Clamping certainly makes it a lot easier to remove material than working free-hand does especially when carving on hard wood.

Like the soundboard, I used templates from the book as a guide. This shows my templates laid out in the positions where they were used.



As you can see in the three shots above, I decided to start by clamping one edge to the bench and then remove much of the excess wood from the unclamped side. I figured this would save me time later in the process. As it turns out this really did not help me much and, on my next project, I will not do it again. Rather, I will carve out the shape of each of the patterns, as I did with the soundboard, and then carve the rest to match. This is the technique I ended up using for the most part anyway. Here are more photos after I got most of the body work done.


And then I worked on the top and some on the scroll. Photos below.



As should be clear from this last picture, I have only started roughing the scroll. I imagine I will probably make it somewhat shorter (lower profile) than it is now and, depending on how I end up liking the scroll extension to the back, I may do away with it, too.